It’s no surprise that current motion is “losing.” Readers of The Economist don’t believe governments create many long-lasting jobs. Who does? Duh.

The position people like Van Jones (and I) advocate is that government helps create the conditions for the private sector to create green jobs. Indeed, other countries are pushing so much harder to foster green jobs because they know that they represent probably the single biggest source of manufacturing and skilled labor this century — and that peak oil and the threat posed by unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases mean that in the future the only jobs left will be green.

The private sector””not the government””can and must be the main driver in creating green jobs. The scale of the transition to cleaner, lower-carbon energy sources is simply too large for public-sector resources and programmes to tackle alone. Only a tidal wave of private investment, innovation, invention and entrepreneurship can get the job done.

But that wave will never rise unless the government becomes a constructive partner in the effort. Therefore, it is perfectly sensible for national governments to aspire to create policies that produce green jobs.

After all, John Doerr, a leading light of Silicon Valley who knows a thing or two about innovation and technology, having placed early bets on Sun Microsystems and a little company called Google, has gone so far as to call clean energy “the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century”.

Critics of green jobs recoil at the notion that governments might somehow tamper with the natural energy market to promote renewables. They sniff and generate a host of objections to market-distorting mandates and wasteful subsidies. But energy markets are already the product of policy, mainly those that support incumbent energy sources like coal, oil and nuclear power. These incumbent technologies benefit from subsidies, regulatory structures that shut out distributed generation of renewable power and pricing schemes that undervalue the economic contributions of energy efficiency.

The critics conveniently ignore the truth that all forms of energy are heavily regulated and often subsidised. This is because energy is the lifeblood of the economy. The precise mix of energy sources being developed and deployed within a country is never the result of pure market forces, but always a result of both private and public choices. It reflects a mix of innovation and investment on the one side, and of regulation, taxation and subsidy on the other.

Because we place no value on our atmosphere, the market acting alone cannot achieve the public interest in a stable climate and human health. Therefore, the question is not whether we will pursue policies to shape energy markets, but what sort of energy markets we want to achieve. It is sensible for governments to enact policies that will maximise the use of clean, renewable and low-carbon energy sources within and beyond their borders.

Public policies are now necessary to correct existing market failures and put clean energy on an even playing field with fossil fuels; to establish the market certainty that businesses need to make long-term investment decisions; and to provide stable, long-term support for clean-energy research, development and deployment, just as they have done in the past for the medical, aeronautical and information technology sectors.

Public investment is also required to bring the ageing electrical and transportation infrastructure that powers our industries and facilitates commerce into the 21st century, and to ramp up workforce and manufacturing infrastructure to meet the enormous new demands for goods and services that will result from new clean-energy markets.

Furthermore, governments will need to go beyond a simple cap-and-trade system for global warming pollution. Renewable energy standards and codes for energy efficiency will help build markets. Green banks and new financing tools will use public underwriting to help unleash private capital. And public investments in infrastructure will create a platform for innovative businesses to thrive and hire more workers.

In this context, policy is not a restraint on trade. It is a driver of innovation.

Fortunately, this approach has a proud and successful history. We can look to the history of the United States for good examples of what is possible. From the Tennessee Valley Authority and rural electrification, to the interstate highway system, to the telecom revolution, new investments in transformative infrastructure have consistently opened up access and opportunity, and brought more people into the middle class. The internet didn’t just create jobs for software engineers; it created work installing fibre optic cable. It created new office jobs in information technology and new career ladders into skilled professions.

Given this aspect of American history, it is ironic that the United States is falling behind in the global race for clean energy. Doubly so, given that the United States invented many of the key technologies that will power future growth, from solar panels, to advanced lithium ion batteries, to the modern wind turbine.

America’s economic competitors in Asia and Europe see the opportunity and are driving hard to secure competitive advantage. China by some estimates invested $400 billion of public and private capital in clean energy just last year.

Given the global competition to dominate clean energy production, one need not believe that green jobs are a panacea to believe that pursuing them is smart and sensible.

After all, practically everything that is good for energy independence or the environment will create a job””a green job. Solar panels don’t put themselves up. Wind turbines don’t manufacture themselves. Homes don’t retrofit or upgrade themselves. The smart grid won’t install itself, nor will bullet trains lay their own tracks. In many places, trees don’t even plant themselves any more.

To argue against green jobs is to argue for government inaction or abdication on some of the biggest challenges of our time. That is not acceptable.

Great and mighty labours are required of humanity in the new century. To mitigate climate chaos and avoid economy-wrecking energy shortages, workers must repower, rewire and retrofit whole nations. As men and women step forward to achieve these ends and accomplish these tasks, their hard-hats””in many cases””will be green

6 Responses to You can support Van Jones and clean energy jobs

The “anti” arguments are pathetic. Pure FUD. If the resolution were “Should you listen to your friends’ advice?” the anti arguments would be “But sometimes they disagree, and anyway, what do they know?”

It’s rather disturbing how many of the comments on the Economist page call Van Jones a racist, among other insults. Apparently there’s a lareg overlap between the audiences of the Economist and Glenn Beck.

Just what is the matter with you people? Not only is jones a self avowed [snip], he is a complete and utter idiot. What parts of those FACTS are you morons having trouble understanding? And, though climate change is real, it is not not man made, and man has no control over the change in our climate, none. Can any of you say, evolution? Do any of you people have any type of education at all, or are you all just lemmings that are so gullible that no matter what the facts are, you just jump over the edge with liars like gore, who is counting on your stupidity to continue to make millions off of it? Obviosuly, none of you have any idea how negatively this lunacy is going to impact you, and your future…. I would be happy to go technically into solar and wind power and how there is no way that anytime soon any these potential ideas would provide a level of generation capability to kep your lights on….jesus…the stupidity is overwhelming….

As a scientist and engineer who has done my own research and has a long and strong background in designing energy systems, my strong suggestion is that you people look at the real evidence…not the garbage propagated by these fools….the information put out by these people is not real… Another question, do any of you know anything about statistical analysis, or software development? Anyone that does, would understand that the lunatic fringe “statistics” are corrupt and have no real credibility…and you don’t even have to know anything about science to know that.

Man, Americans really are getting more ignorant by the day….its embarrassing….

Kuwaiti Economists using an updated model of Hubbard’s Peak Oil curve predicted recently that global oil production will peak and begin to decline in 2014, joining a growing list of economists and even oil execs and experts who are (usually quietly but still on the record) telling us we don’t have much time. So, I’m not sure I agree with you and Van Joe – I understand the political reasons for reciting the mantra: “the private sector will save us” but I don’t think that’s realistic. We have everything we really need: raw materials, smart people, skilled workers, technology that can get the job done…everything we need EXCEPT an organizational system capable of pulling this all together and making it work. We have a completely disfunctional Government, an embarrassingly corrupt private sector, and an Orwellian Media feeding confusion and inanity to the voters as fast as they can. We don’t even build all of our Military Weapons here in the USA any more! Even those jobs get shipped off.

I do admire the determination to go with what we have at hand and make the best of it so I’m with you, but I really think what is required is a bottom-up (that is to say demanded by the people) WWII style mobilization that pulls everyone in, builds all the factories right here puts everybody to work and gets the job done and done fast. I guess even FDR needed a crisis though so that me be what it takes. The crisis really is at hand but nobody wants to bear that news.